


Ice Cream for Valentines

by mobile_mom



Series: The Holiday Series [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: #EGChallenge6, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bipolar Disorder, Light Angst, M/M, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 20:04:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17814623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mobile_mom/pseuds/mobile_mom
Summary: A sad but sweet Valentine's episode that can be read as a "deleted scene" from my multi chapter Core of my Soul where I am just alluding that Ian had several down phases while Yevy was still very young.Core of my SoulThanks to Erika for beta reading.Originally posted as part of "Cupid's Arrow - A Gallavich Valentine's day" for #EGChallenge6





	Ice Cream for Valentines

Mickey stood in his narrow hallway, holding the cold door handle with his eyes closed, taking in a deep breath, he told himself everything was going to be fine.

When he entered, he automatically avoided stepping onto the creaking threshold. It took a few seconds for his eyes to get used to the dimness of their simple but beloved bedroom. A room that didn’t offer anything more than a huge but pretty old bed and a shaky cabinet to an outsider, but to them it offered so much more: safety, togetherness, care, love, laughter, tenderness…and hurt. So much pain and loneliness…despair.

Yeah, loneliness and despair had been his faithful companions during the last days, Mickey thought absentmindedly as he took Yevgeny’s bright colored Cars pillow that waited for him below a catatonic Ian, laying in bed since day two. Mickey had taken it from his four year old’s room after the first hours of sitting next to Ian on the cold floor had left him with a slight pain in his knees and an irritating stench on his pants, which had apparently transmitted from the stained carpet.

“One day we’ll rip this shit out and put something decent in here, huh? But for now we should really let in some sun,” he mumbled while opening the dusty curtain a bit.

Usually Ian would protest against too much light, but nothing. In fact he was straight away staring at it with blank, glassy eyes. Although, he actually wasn’t staring at the sun, he was staring at, well nothing really, completely focused on a point miles away, only visibly to himself.

The sight of this scared Mickey to the bones, but he couldn’t allow himself to lose it. Not now, not ever. This was too important. Ian was way too important to him.

And if today wouldn’t bring some fucking progress, it would be the clinic again. Okay, no. No, no, no, no, no, c’mon, get your shit together. Cheer him up.

“Hey, sleepyhead?” he asked with a careful voice that trembled more than he would have liked, “You know what day it is? One of your favorites, man.”

On his way to sit down in front of the bed Mickey tenderly stroked a strand of hair out of Ian’s forehead and placed a kiss there, with lips that barely touched the skin. They had to make progress today and he couldn’t dare to risk this, regardless of how much he longed to feel Ian’s warm skin, really touch it.

“It’s Valentine’s Day,”Mickey whispered. Well, at least it was to most people, whereas to him it was just day four of Ian refusing to get out of bed.

When this had happened the first time they were living together, Lip had explained to him, how after a certain amount of days or incidents it simply wasn’t possible any longer to turn the wheel around yourself, that professional help was needed. And as much as Mickey wanted to be offended back then, by being treated condescendingly, he couldn’t. Lip had really meant what he told Mickey the first time when they got Ian from the police station and since that day, he had never treated him like know-it-all again. That didn’t mean they were best friends know or would hang out together, but since that day, when Lip had understood that he would never let Ian down, they treated each other with respect and somehow “professional”, since they both wanted the man, whom they loved so much, to be fine. Lip had made him promise that after five days without improvement, he’d call the ambulance. Just thinking about it, made Mickey shiver. He didn’t want to force anything on Ian ever, but he knew there may be times when he had to, for the sake of his well being. But knowing that this would only be for Ian’s good couldn’t take the feeling of failure away from Mickey. He didn’t want to fail Ian. He loved Ian and that was the only thing he wanted to show him.

And given the tiny rasping Ian suddenly made, Mickey seemed to have done just that in the right way.

“Juice?”

“Juice? Yeah sure, sure you can have some!” Mickey beamed with relief and opened the little bottle of orange juice he had brought with him.

“You think you can sit up?”

But after that gave him no reaction, he forced himself not to panic too much and instead concentrated on finding a straw. Thank god again for little Yevgeny and having drinking straws around. With shaking fingers Mickey put one inside the bottle, bending the upper part of the plastic down a bit and offering the bottle to his pale boyfriend.

“Here you go,” he murmured, holding out the juice to Ian who lifted his head a little and started sucking on the straw like a fragile, abandoned kitten that had to be nursed back to health with a milk bottle.

After a few sips he exhaustedly dropped to his back and stared at the ceiling. 

Mickey leaned his back onto the cold wall and let out a melancholy sigh.. How much he wished he were lying next to him. Feeling each other had always grounded them both, giving them the strength and assurance that they’d make it and what they had was right. But this anchor was missing now. He felt like a leaf trying in vain not to be blown away by the windy confusion of life. And what if Ian felt the same right now? But experience had taught him that in those phases, Ian was extremely resistant to too much contact and closeness, and he simply did not want to risk being completely withdrawn from him. After all, he had been drinking; the next step had to be the pills. If he could get Ian back on taking his pills, they were out of the woods.

“Hey, guess what. Yev asked this morning if we could all go out to eat ice cream.” Mickey tried to sound as carefree as possible.

“That kid,” he huffed “Wweet guy really is a handful, huh? Ice cream in February at 27 degrees and the fucking Chicago wind freezing our asses off.”

When he looked back at Ian, he realized a lonesome tear was traveling down his freckled cheek. And at this sight, nothing could stop him. He finally climbed into bed and pulled Ian into his arms as best he could.

“Shhh, shhhh, it’s okay, it’s fine I’ve got you. You hear me? I am here with you. I’ve got you. We are in this together, Ian. You and me.”

The taller man now clung to him, tears rolling uncontrollably and he was shaking, trying to form some words:

“I’m…I’m so sorry.”

“Woah, hey, there is nothing to be sorry for. Fucking meds should be damn fucking sorry for messing up and not working right. Hear me? You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“But I didn’t take them,” he sobbed, looking up now with reddened eyes that seemed to carry all the weight of the world.

“But that was the last two days only. Don’t you remember, you felt off a while before that, already. I…I am sorry, Ian. I should have payed more attention to the signs.”

He was crying now too. Crying because he felt ashamed and frustrated for not taking a closer look and realizing Ian was sliding down before it got so bad he wouldn’t move anymore, burying himself in a little cocoon on his side of the bed. He cried because he was relieved that Ian had spoken again, reacted at all and allowed to himself to be held. He cried, because despite all the rocks they got thrown in their way, they were here now, together, with a fantastic little son, and…

“Hey, you wanna see Yevgeny?” he mumbled into Ian’s hair and panicked when he felt how Ian stiffened in his embrace.

“Shhh, don’t worry,” and he lifted his head a bit to be able to look into Ian’s eyes, but he avoided his gaze. Mickey didn’t give up though and started caressing Ian’s cheek with his thumb. And it worked again, Ian relaxed and Mickey went on, ”We told him, you are very exhausted and needed a lot of sleep. He misses you.” And after a tender kiss on the forehead he asked, “Want me to get him?”

And if a nod could ever be grateful, then he had just seen this. He climbed out of bed as carefully and yet as fast as he could, only to almost get a heart attack as he nearly crashed into Svetlana and Yevgeny when he opened the bedroom door.

“Don’t scold, Mick, I heard voices and Yev has something for Ian.”

Mickey was irritated and a bit angry, but focused on lifting Yevvy up and stepping back to the bedroom again. He opened the curtains a little further, before carefully placing his son on the bed. In a cheesy Hollywood movie, this would have been the perfect moment for a rainbow and a Hallelujah chorus, for these two people he loved so much beamed with a fiery bliss before they both fell into each other's arms without saying a word.

Mickey’s eyes were burning and he did not want to confuse Yevvy with his tears of joy.

“I’m, I’m gonna go get the pills, a’ight?” and he stormed off, nearly crashing into Svetlana a second time.

“Watch them, I’ll get the meds.”

*************

About an hour later, Svetlana wondered why her little caterpillar of a son hadn’t been hungry for dinner yet and she carefully opened the same door that she had almost gotten slapped in the face with twice today.

The sight that greeted her was heartfelt: all three were cuddled together side by side in bed, everyone with a blissful, peaceful smile on his face. One of Ian’s arms held Mickey close to himself and their son, who was in the middle somewhat lying above the two men and his other hand held the little Valentine’s card Yevgeny had insisted on drawing today.

She didn’t mind that the big heart didn’t feature her. She even had to chuckle a bit, remembering how Yev had at first drawn a HUGE heart and written “mom” into it after she had to write “mom, Daddy, Ian, Yev” for him on an extra piece of paper. And then he had painted another heart and beneath it showed Mickey, holding hands with Ian, who was holding hands with Yev and inside the card was an ice cream parlor. And she knew, as soon as Ian would be able to get up again that’s exactly where they would go to. And nothing could have made her more happy, 27 degrees or not; geez, fucking happy Valentines.

**Author's Note:**

> 


End file.
